Linked List: March 26, 2013

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Lucky Number Seven 

Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft:

Windows Phone has reached 10 percent market share in a number of countries, and according to IDC’s latest report, has shipped more than Blackberry in 26 markets and more than iPhone in seven.

OK, I’ll bite: which seven?

MacUpdate March 2013 Bundle 

Last day to score this deal from MacUpdate: $600 of Mac software for just $50.

Forecast 

Forecast:

About a year ago, we released a little app for the iPhone and iPad called Dark Sky, attempting to do something new and interesting for weather forecasting, a field we think had become pretty stagnant. Approaching 100k sales, it’s been fairly successful; however, we’ve been continually asked for more: international support, longer-term forecasting, an Android app, and so on.

Rather than cram these things into Dark Sky, we decided to do something grander: create our own full-featured weather service from scratch, complete with 7-day forecasts that cover the whole world, beautiful weather visualizations, and a time machine for exploring the weather in the past and far future.

Bold move.

Apple’s Broken Promise: iCloud and Core Data 

Devastating piece by Ellis Hamburger for The Verge on the calamitous state of iCloud Core Data syncing: users want it, but it simply doesn’t work reliably.

Just a Head Fake? 

Om Malik:

We have been privately musing that Apple’s iWatch might just be a head fake, a way to throw off the rivals (and even insiders at the company) and send them on a wild goose chase.

How great would this be?

Update: Although I’m not sure what the point of fooling “insiders” would be. If this watch thing is a head fake, it’s meant only to misdirect competitors.

The more likely scenario, of course, is that Apple is working on a watch or watch-like device. But some combination of Samsung, Google, Microsoft, and others will rush their smart watches to market first. Then, if Apple ships theirs (a big if — Apple scraps more projects than it ships), it will look and work like no other. Then, mysteriously, the next round of watches from all the other companies will somehow wind up looking like slightly clunkier versions of Apple’s. (Remember the “slates” Microsoft heralded at CES 2010?)